The Stingiest Man in Gotham
by Dennis Fielder
Summary: Bruce Wayne is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve.
1. Bruce Wayne

The Legion of Superheroes with Rankin Bass. Merry Christmas! … In March…

Disclaimer: The Legion of Superheroes and any other DC characters I use in this belong to Warner Brothers, DC Comics, and their respective creators while the Stingiest Man in Town belongs to Rankin-Bass. I own nothing.

* * *

**The Stingiest Man in Gotham**

Prologue: Bruce Wayne

_Holly-ho!_

_Holly ho-ho-ho!_

_Holly ho! Tally ho!_

_Sing a Christmas Carol written long ago._

Garth and his sister Ayla Ranzz were hanging out in Wayne Manor when we walked up.

"_Written long ago._" Garth repeated when he noticed us. "The merriest of Merry Christmases to you."

"Who are you two?" I asked?

"Who are we?" Garth exclaimed. "Garth Ranzz of Winath, and this is my little sister, Ayla."

"Hi!" Ayla said cheerfully.

"Anyone, welcome to the home of the kindest and most generous man in Gotham, Bruce Wayne." Garth continued.

"What?" My friend Rob asked in shock.

"You're surprised I call Bruce kind and generous." Garth observed. "Well, you can take my word for it. True, Mr. Wayne wasn't always so jolly. There was a time when he was as mean and miserable as the counting house in which he conducted his business. The offices of Wayne and Wilson. Now Slade Wilson was dead to begin with, but old Bruce never paid to have Slade's name crossed out.

* * *

_There was a mean and stingy man_

_Who was named Bruce Wayne._

_His heart was hard and cold_

_Because he was the devil's cane._

_While Bruce set down to count the gold_

_That is mind could never leave._

_Young people in the square outside…_

"Merry Christmas!" Several children called out, disrupting Bruce's train of thought.

_Celebrated Christmas Eve._

"Away!" Bruce shouted, brandishing an umbrella. "Away with you and your 'Merry Christmas'!"

The children scattered upon seeing Bruce.

"Christmas." Bruce scoffed as he sat back down. "Bah humbug. Humbug!"

* * *

"That used to be his favorite word." Garth explained to us. "Me and Ayla's mom was the housekeeper for Bruce before she passed on, so he had us stay and divide our mother's old work load. Oh, Bruce was a tight-fisted man. A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, covetous old sinner. Until that Christmas Eve, not too long ago, when the ghosts came. My new friends, allow me and my sister to tell you a Ghost Story for Christmas. _**The Stingiest Man in Gotham**_."

* * *

And you'll hear it too, in a few days, hopefully. So keep an eye out.


	2. Merry Christmas Uncle Bruce

Chapter 1: Merry Christmas Uncle Bruce

It was Christmas Eve, about two years back, and the people in the streets of Gotham were singing.

_An old fashioned Christmas,_

_With snow falling hard._

_On scenery looking like,_

_A pretty Christmas Card._

Inside, Garth, the personal aid of Bruce Wayne, was talking with Bruce's clerk, Clark Kent, while the music was going on.

_An old fashioned angel,_

_On top of a tree._

_And candlelight shining down,_

_On friends surrounding me._

Garth did a little dance with Ayla as Clark smiled when Bruce burst in. Clark was a tall lean man with square glasses, black hair, and bright blue eyes.

"Kent!" Bruce called out as the two siblings stopped, and Clark stood at attention. "A pretty way to be wasting my time. 'An old fashioned Christmas.' You'll be an old fashioned pauper if you don't attend to your work."

"You wouldn't discharge me, sir." Clark said nervously. "Not on Christmas Eve."

"Oh, wouldn't I?" Bruce asked when a lump of coal fell out of Clark's jacket pocket. "What's this? Stealing my coal, are we?"

"For the stove, sir." Clark said meekly. "It's so damp and chilly in here."

Clark had to sneak the coal in lump by lump when Bruce's back was turned; luckily, he was never severely punished for it, especially since the office was actually a little refreshing in the summers.

"Next thing, you'll be picking my pockets." Bruce said with a sneer.

"Oh look, sir." Clark said as he saw a figure in red and green pass the window. "Your nephew Dick is coming to pay you a visit."

"What's that fool want?" Bruce asked just as Dick popped in.

"I like him, sir." Clark said. "His smile warms my heart."

Dick was a young man with black hair like Bruce's and green eyes like his mother.

"_Merry Christmas, Uncle Bruce!_" Dick called out.

"_Humbug!_" Bruce called back dismissively.

"_Oh, be merry, Uncle Bruce._" Dick persisted.

"Ha-ha-ha." Bruce said in a lackluster way.

_What's so merry on Christmas Day?_

_The merry money you throw away?_

_The merry bills you have to pay?_

_When you say 'Merry Christmas',_

_I say bah!_

Clark shrugged at Garth and Ayla, none of them really knew why Bruce was so cold and unfeeling.

"_Here's a present, Uncle Bruce._" Dick said as he handed a box to Bruce.

"_Humbug!_" Bruce called out as he opened the present to reveal, as he suspected, a tie.

_I think you are a fool to waste your cash._

_What's the present you always buy?_

_A handkerchief or an awful tie._

_Look at this tie, and you'll know why,_

_When I get Christmas presents,_

_I say trash!_

Bruce tossed the tie away as it ends up wrapped around Clark's neck.

"It's you." Garth said encouragingly.

"Yeah." Ayla continued.

"_But everything at Christmas is so jolly and lively._" Dick continued. "_The Christmas trees and wreaths of holly._"

"_Poison ivy._" Bruce scoffed.

"_The girls and boys who dream about St. Nicholas._" Dick went on.

"St. Nicholas?" Bruce asked. "Ridiculous."

"_Don't you like him, Uncle Bruce?_" Dick asked.

"_Humbug!_" Bruce called out.

'_Good old, Nicholas._'

_That's a lot of slosh!_

_I abominate old St. Nick._

_His reckless spending makes me sick._

_I think St. Nick's a lunatic._

_When you say 'Old St. Nicholas',_

_I say bosh!_

"Oh, don't be so cross, Uncle." Dick insisted. "Come, dine with us tomorrow."

"Christmas dinner?" Bruce scoffed. "What a revolting, repugnant institution."

"_Oh don't you like a juicy Christmas turkey?_" Dick asked.

"Detest it." Bruce argued.

"_Plum pudding with a brandy sauce?_" Dick went on.

"Can't digest it." Bruce said airily.

"_You'll get a mellow feeling for humanity._" Dick went on.

"'Humanity?' Insanity!" Bruce called out again.

At this, Clark had to hold Garth and Ayla back at Bruce's pure ire for life.

"_You'll enjoy it, Uncle Bruce._" Dick assured him.

"_Humbug!_" Bruce said once more.

_It may be fun for you, but not for me._

_I'm not happy on Christmas Day._

_I'm never cheerful. I'm never gay._

_If you think I could feel that way,_

_Then you are just as stupid as can be._

Bruce then backed Dick back to the door.

_If you think I'd be merry,_

_And chirp like a canary,_

_Then you are even dumber than a dumb bug!_

_When you say 'Merry Christmas',_

_I say fiddlesticks! Poppycock!_

_And just plain humbug! Humbug!_

_Humbug, humbug, HUMBUG!_

"I pity you, Uncle." Dick said calmly. "Maybe I'll never be as rich as you, but I'll go to my grave still believing in a merry Christmas."

"Good afternoon." Bruce said as he opened the door for Dick.

"A wonderful Christmas!" Dick went on.

"Good afternoon!" Bruce said a bit more forcefully.

"A magnificent Christmas!" Dick finished.

"GOOD AFTERNOON!" Bruce shouted as he kicked Dick out of the house.

()()()()()

Dick picked himself up, brushed himself down and began walking, joining the carolers in song.

_An old fashioned Christmas._

_With snow falling hard._

_On scenery looking like_

_A pretty Christmas card._

_An old fashioned angel,_

_On top of a tree._

_With candlelight dancing down_

_On friends surrounding me._

* * *

Man, that kid is a rock!


	3. The Chains

Chapter 2: The Chains

As the clock chimed five, the end of the work day, Clark finished up and nervously went to Bruce.

"You'll want all day off tomorrow, I suppose." Bruce groaned.

"If it's convenient sir." Clark said. "After all, it is Christmas Eve."

"It's not convenient." Bruce muttered. "And it's not fair. I have you pay you a day's wages for nothing. All this holiday garbage will have me in the poor house."

"Don't fall for it, Clark." Garth muttered. Bruce was a sly old business man.

"Well sir." Clark said. "If things are so bad for you, you don't have to pay me for the whole day."

"First sensible thing you've said all day, Kent." Bruce said. "I'll pay you half a day, and no more."

"Alright." Clark said.

He and Bruce walked out as Garth and Ayla reluctantly followed Bruce. Garth was the angriest at him.

_How can anybody be so stingy?_

_So stingy? So stingy?_

_How can anybody be so stingy?_

_He's the stingiest man in town!_

Bruce sighed as he checked his cash box for the day, full as expected.

"Uh, you're lucky you're dead as a doornail, Slade." Bruce sighed. "And not bothered with Christmas. I'm lucky too. I don't have to share the profits with you, anymore."

_Old Wayne is such a stingy man._

_The tightest man since time began._

_Oh he's so tight, so tight I say,_

_He wouldn't give a bride away._

_It hurts him so to pay one cent._

_He wouldn't pay a compliment._

_He uses lightning bugs at night_

_To save the cash he pays for light._

_How can anybody be so stingy?_

_So stingy? So stingy?_

_How can anybody be so stingy?_

_He's the stingiest man in town!_

_And when his Hurst goes rolling by,_

_No man alive is gonna cry._

_But you can bet his ghost will curse,_

_Because he's paying for the Hurst._

_And when it's time for him to go,_

_His soul will travel down below._

_And when he gets there, you can tell_

_Because you'll hear old Satan yell,_

"_How can anybody be so stingy?!_

_So stingy?! So stingy?!_

_He's the stingiest man in town!"_

Bruce went to an old house that used to belong to Slade, having been left to Bruce in his will. There was something strange about that night. The mist was so dark that it seemed like death sat in meditation. Bruce went to the doorknob when suddenly it became the face of Slade Wilson! There was no mistake. He had the same goatee and eye patch, covering an eye that he lost at one point.

"Slade?" Bruce gasped. "Slade Wilson? But you've been dead for seven years! Oh, why have you come back to haunt me?!"

The doorknob returned to normal, and Bruce sighed.

"Just my imagination." Bruce sighed. "Bah humbug. I better get to bed."

Bruce walked in as Garth and Ayla followed. Their parents had been Slade Wilson's aids, and Bruce inherited their use with the house.

"Didn't seem like a humbug to me." Ayla said as she passed the door nervously.

After the commotion, Bruce went straight to bed, however…

_That night when old stingy Bruce Wayne_

_Lay dreaming in his room,_

_He heard the sound of rattling chains_

_Come clanking through the gloom._

_And while he lay there shivering_

_In the icy grip of fear,_

_The ghost of Bruce's partner,_

_Old Slade Wilson did appear…_

Slade looked the same, but he was covered in chains and cash boxes.

"Bruce Wayne…" Slade said moaning as if in pain or misery. "In life I was your partner, Slade Wilson."

"Bah!" Bruce said. "You're just an hallucination!"

"See me." Slade said as calm as the sea. "Why do you doubt your senses?"

Slade removed his very face as his skeleton roared at him. Shocking Bruce as Slade refixed his face back on as easy as putting on a mask.

"What do you want with me?" Bruce asked nervously.

"Much." Slade explained. "Look at me. Condemned to walk the Earth in death because I wasted my life."

"Wasted?" Bruce asked. "How Slade?"

"I helped myself to money." Slade said with a weep. "Instead of helping my neighbor, and so I wear this chain of greed and heartlessness I forged in life."

_I wear a chain. A heavy chain_

_Is bound around my soul._

_A chain of sin and vices_

_That I could not control._

_Repent your crimes. Repent in time._

_Or you'll repent in vain._

_For if you wait until too late,_

_You'll never break your chains._

_Although my chain is very long,_

_The one you wear is longer._

_My chain of wrong is very strong,_

_But yours is even stronger._

_You must escape! Escape my fate!_

_Cast of the sins that bind you,_

_Or you will find when you pass on,_

_You'll drag your chain behind you!_

"But it's not right for you to be so condemned!" Bruce said, applying this to himself as well. "You were only doing business in life as I do now. And business is business."

"Mankind should have been my business." Slade said. "You still have time to repent. Reform!"

"How?" Bruce asked.

"Tonight, you will be haunted by three spirits." Slade said.

"I'd rather not." Bruce said quaking for the first time in many, many years.

"Without their visits you cannot hope to shun the path I tread." Slade retorted. "Expect the first tonight when the bell tolls one."

Slade then walked to the window and opened it as Bruce saw several people with chains like Slade's, some were shorter, some were longer, but all looked extremely heavy to carry.

"See the phantoms that fill the night air." Slade elaborated. "Each with chains. None free, and I must go with them."

Slade floated down to the others and turned to Bruce.

"Observe and know our misery, Bruce." Slade went on. "Now we seek to do good in human matters but have lost the power forever. Repent! Repent…!"

"No!" Bruce said more out of fear of the sight than refusing to repent. "NO!"

Bruce shut the window as Ayla and Garth rushed to see the sight, having seen Slade with Bruce.

"They're gone…" Garth said with a shiver.

* * *

Oh my… That must suck for Slade.


	4. Little Mary

Chapter 3: Little Mary

After the shock of seeing Slade's ghost, Bruce went to sleep, and Bruce was suddenly awoken when the bell of the grandfather clock down in his study stroke one.

As Bruce got up, he was aware of a bright light and pulled back the curtains to reveal a figure, he was a blonde boy with green eyes and green skin. He appeared to be Coluan, but without any of the usual cybernetics.

"Who are you?" Bruce asked.

"I am the ghost of Christmas Past." The boy said.

"Long past?" Bruce asked.

"No." The boy said. "Your past. You may refer to me as Brainy for simplicity's sake. Now take my hand."

Bruce hesitantly took it, and all of a sudden, they were flying over the city before arriving at a smaller suburb.

"I don't know where we're going." Bruce thought aloud. "But everything looks strangely familiar."

"Look upon yourself when you were younger." Brainy said as he led Bruce to a school house where an eleven-year-old boy with the same black hair and blue eyes as him as alone at a schoolhouse reading a book.

"Do you know this child?" Brainy asked.

"Know him?" Bruce said. "That's me."

"May I ask why you are all alone in there?" Brainy asked.

"After my parents died, I kinda just took to staying over at the old boarding school full time." Bruce explained. "Give myself a chance to… To catch up on my reading."

There was a knock at the door as young Bruce finished reading, and he opened it to reveal a red haired girl with bright green eyes.

"Oh Bruce, Bruce!" Mary squealed. "I just talked to Alfred, and he was able to convince the courts to let him take care of us! We can be together all Christmas long!"

"Really?" Bruce asked.

"Yes!" Mary insisted. "We're going to have the merriest Christmas ever, and be together always!"

"Right." Bruce said with a smile as he walked off with his sister.

"Always a delicate girl who a breath might have withered." Brainy stated. "But she had a big heart."

"Yeah." Bruce said as he began choking up. "She did."

"She died a woman and had children, right?" Brainy asked.

"One child." Bruce sighed.

"True." Brainy went on. "Your nephew Robin."

"And when Mary died, I swore I'd never love anything again."

"But you did love again." Brainy said. "Come…"

Brainy took Bruce's hand, and in an instant, they were off again.

* * *

I had to add this. I couldn't resist.


	5. It Might Have Been

Chapter 5: It Might Have Been

Almost an instant after watching his younger self leave with Mary, Bruce found himself outside a building he hadn't seen in years.

"Why, this is where my first job was." Bruce gaped. "Yes, old Ted Grant's offices. It sounds like one of his Christmas parties are going on!"

Bruce looked in excitedly, acting surprisingly more like he used to rather than how he acted in the present. Bruce looked in and saw himself not all that different from his present self, if a bit more joyful, dancing with a slender woman with black hair and blue eyes like sapphires.

"That's me, and my fiancé, Selina!" Bruce called out. "I remember it like it was yesterday. After the dance, we went out into the snow to cool ourselves. Oh, what were we whispering on that long ago day?"

"But you can't be serious, Selina." The younger Bruce said plainly.

"There's no reason we can't get married now." Selina said plainly. "Don't you love me, Bruce?"

"More than the world." Bruce assured Selina. "But I would rather wait until I was more secure, financially."

"No, you young fool!" Bruce snapped at his former self.

"Don't say that, dear." Selina said to the past Bruce. "You frighten me."

"I only want what's best for you." Bruce went on.

"That's what I want too." Selina added. "A tiny cottage."

"A cottage?" Bruce asked.

"_I want a gilded cottage._" Selina explained.

"_We can't afford it yet._" Bruce explained. "_But when I've made my fortune, what mansions we will get._"

"_I only want a little cottage with children playing on the floor._" Selina explained calmly.

"_But darling love flies out the window when poverty comes through the door._" Bruce insisted.

_I think of you, and my future gleams._

_And my mind is filled with golden dreams._

_I think of you, and I love you so._

_All the world takes on a golden glow._

_So hold me close, tonight._

_And fill me with dreams of delight._

_I think of you and your love for me._

_And I know that life with you will be_

_More beautiful than it seems_

_In my golden … Dreams . . ._

As the two embraced and kissed each other, Bruce could feel tears on his face.

"I…" Bruce said, trying to hold back the tears. "I shouldn't have remembered."

"There is another Christmas." Brainy said, and in that instant, they were just outside Bruce and Slade's old business. "You had just formed your partnership with Slade. Your business was new, but your ways were set."

"Oh please." Bruce gasped. "Spare me the rest."

"You must drain the cup to the dregs." Brainy insisted. "Recall how you drove love from your heart and replaced it with the worship of money."

"No!" Bruce gasped.

"Yes!" Selina snapped at the younger Bruce, both having obviously been through much darker times since the party. "Another idol has replaced me!"

"Oh really?" Bruce asked dismissively. "That's going a bit far, don't you think?"

Bruce then sat down and went over his books as this was a while before Clark became his clerk.

"Hm." Bruce groaned. "Jordan is six months in default. Do you realize how much money I stand to lose?"

"But Bruce, it is Christmas." Selina insisted, closing the book.

"Christmas?!" Bruce said as he shot up in anger, not for the first or last time. "Christmas is a folly, a sham, a waste of time! It's a… A humbug! Yes, yes. Christmas is a humbug."

Selina gasped and turned away.

"I… I wish to break off our engagement, Bruce." Selina said.

"You can't be serious." Bruce said in honest shock. "Why?"

"You've become someone I don't know." Selina said. "Someone I don't wish to know."

_You've lost the beautiful tomorrow._

_You really had a chance to win._

_Our love has turned into a shadow_

_Of happiness that might have been._

"Oh phooey." Bruce said as he turned his back to her, mistakenly thinking she was just hysterical.

_It might have been_

_A warm and wonderful romance._

_It might have been_

_If you had given it a chance._

_You had the ticket to enchanted lands._

_Why did you let it slip right through your hands?_

Unable to bare it, Selina rushed out of the building, Bruce moved to follow, but he couldn't bring himself to do it and simply went back to his books.

_I might have known_

_A life of happiness with you,_

_But love has flown._

_The wrong I've done, I can't undo._

_And now too late, my bitter tears begin._

_Because I know… It might… Have… Been. . ._

As Bruce watched his former self let Selina leave he turned to Brainy.

"I can't bare it!" Bruce called out. "HAUNT ME NO LONGER!"

Bruce went to Brainy, but all he gripped was his clock.

"Oh…" Bruce sighed. "Thank heavens."

Bruce went back to sleep as Garth and Ayla, having been in an adjoining room, came in just to see what was going on, when a loud laugh was heard, and Bruce bolt up, and all three looked down to a yellow light from the living room.

* * *

Uh-oh. Looks like the number two ghost is right on time.


End file.
